Service Assembly Architecture (SAA) is based on a set of reusable, atomic, service flow management components. These are characterized by standard interfaces that allow for the components to be assembled in any order to provide a desired overall communications control function. The standard interface is complemented by a standard data structure that provides the input and output to each component. Hence there is a high degree of standardization throughout the SAA. The provided control function is implemented in an associated communications network. The SAA allows the rapid creation of new and converged telecommunications services employing reusable service flow elements of various granularities to construct the service.
The present invention applies these novel techniques and defines new constructs that enable the rapid creation of new converged telecommunications services. The need for this ability in the telecoms industry is more acute than ever, with the convergence of fixed line, mobile and media services all melding into a common industry with common customers.
The rapid design and creation of new services has been a goal of the telecommunications industry for some time, dating at least to the post-divestiture era in the U.S. of the late 1980's. At that time many companies invested heavily in developing “service creation platforms” using conventional switches provided with “service interfaces” that allowed a limited level of call-control to be managed by a separate computer known as an adjunct processor. These efforts were motivated by the desire of a diversity of new companies, primarily the divested Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) in the US, to differentiate themselves from their siblings and other carriers with new communication services. Up until this point, the only features available for offer were those that were embedded in the traditional telecom switches such as the 5ESS. Creation of a new feature or service required the carriers to make a request of the switch supplier (AT&T, Northern Telecom, Ericsson, et al.) for the new feature, essentially requesting a custom development effort from the switch suppler. The costs and development times associated with such customizations were often very substantial, resulting in multi-million dollar quotations. The costs of building such services were so high that very few were actually built.
During this time however, new features and functionality such as in-network voice mail and E-911 services became feasible through the above noted service platforms and adjunct processors. Though there were some successful initiatives in this era, the associated capital costs and development intervals were still prohibitive for services except those that were expected to be widely adopted. Predicting such adoption was very difficult; even some services that were built directly into the switch were not commercially successful.